Demographisch gegliederte Nachfragesysteme modellieren Unterschiede im Verbrauch verschiedener Verbrauchergruppen bzw. Haushaltstypen. In der vorliegenden Arbeit wird untersucht, welche Nachfragesysteme einerseits die Restriktionen der neoklassischen Nachfragetheorie erfüllen und andererseits...

Die Eigenschaften moderner Konsumgüter sind für die Konsumenten oft schwer einzuschätzen. Die Folgen sind Qualitätsunsicherheit und fehlerhafte Bewertungen der von den Produkten ausgehenden Gefahren. Informationsprobleme können ein "Marktversagen" begründen. -- Von den Autoren ist...

This paper investigates the influence of the political regime on the relative importance of conspicuous consumption. We use the separation of Germany into the communist GDR and the democratic FRG and its reunification in 1990 as a natural experiment. Relying on household data that are...

We study how website defaults affect consumer behavior in the domain of charitable giving. In a field experiment that was conducted on a large platform for making charitable donations over the web, we exogenously vary the default options in two distinct choice dimensions. The first pertains to...

This paper analyses the relationship between locus of control (LOC) and the demand for supplementary health insurance. Drawing on longitudinal data from Germany, we find robust evidence that individuals having an internal LOC are more likely to take up supplementary private health insurance...

This paper examines the effects of real estate transfer taxes (RETT) on property prices using a rich micro dataset of roughly 17 million German properties for the period from 2005 to 2019. We exploit a 2006 constitutional reform that allows states to set their own RETT rates, leading to frequent...

The homeownership rate in Germany is one of the lowest among advanced economies. To better understand this fact, we analyze the role of three specific policies which discourage homeownership in Germany: an extensive social housing sector with broad eligibility criteria, high transfer taxes when...

Do firms' and consumers' expectations react to central bank announcements? Past literature has come to divergent conclusions, but it has systematically ignored how media treat the announcements. This paper investigates the link between monetary policy announcements and expectations by taking...

We estimate the impact of Covid-induced working from home (WFH) on offline consumer spending in urban agglomerations. Our analysis draws on postcode-level data on card transactions and WFH patterns in major German cities between January 2019 and May 2022. We address endogeneity in WFH uptake by...